About the author (1988)

Marion Zimmer Bradley is a science-fiction and fantasy writer, novelist, and editor. She was born in Albany, New York on June 3, 1930. Bradley attended the New York State College for Teachers from 1946 to 1948. She earned a B.A. from Hardin Simmons University in 1964. Bradley did graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley from 1965 to 1967. Bradley sold her first story to Fantastic Amazing Stories as part of an amateur fiction contest. She sold her first professional story to Vortex Science Fiction in 1952. Her novels include The Sword of Aldones and The Planet Savers. Both novels were set on Darkover, the setting for more than 20 subsequent Bradley novels. Bradley also wrote The Mists of Avalon, a reworking of the King Arthur legend with more emphasis on the female characters. She used the same approach with The Firebrand, which was based on The Iliad. In addition to writing more than 85 books, Bradley was the editor of an annual anthology for DAW Books, as well as the editor of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. Bradley died in 1999.

Martin H. Greenberg was born in 1942. He received a doctorate in Political Science in 1969 and was a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin until 1995. Over the course of his long and prolific career, Greenberg has published around 1000 anthologies and has worked with numerous best-selling authors including Isaac Asimov, Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Anne McCaffrey, Sue Grafton, Scott Turow and Dean Koontz. He has won numerous awards including the Horror Guild Award in 1994, the Deathrealm Award in 1996, the Bram Stoker Award in 1998, and the Prometheus Special Award in 2005. He also received The Ellery Queen Award for lifetime achievement in mystery editing and the Milford Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction editing.